Happy Endings
by InTheCompanyOfDragons
Summary: Dean didn't know much about what Sam was going through but he did know that Sam needed to grieve... maybe a bottle of whiskey and a starry night would give him a chance to help heal his brother. Set in early season 1.


Happy Endings

Sam was good at compartmentalizing; he had to be in his life. As a hunter he had learned to push away the pain and lock it away, it was one of those qualities he had inherited from his father and at the moment he was glad for it. He could hunt and pretend that Jessica's death wasn't ripping him apart inside, and ignore the worried looks that seemed to be on Dean's face more and more over the past two months.

Dean had tried to talk to him about it, try to get him to open up, but after a few minutes Sam would lock the pain back inside the lead box in his mind and shut down, and Dean would sigh and let it go, for the first time in his life, not knowing how to help his little brother.

Sam could control his emotions when he was awake, he could cover it all in anger and revenge, but when he was sleeping and his walls fell, he could see Jessica burning and he would wake up screaming, and sweating. Dean would sit there watching him, and ask if he was okay, Sam would say he was fine and lock himself in the bathroom until everything felt under control again.

They had just gotten back from a hunt. Dean showered and crashed on the bed closest to the door, and Sam lay there in the darkness fighting sleep, not wanting to see Jessica again, see the girl he loved asking why he didn't save her.

A few hours later Sam stood from his bed and slipped into his jeans, and pulled a bottle out of Deans bag at the end of his bed. He tiptoed across the floor trying not to wake his sleeping brother and walked out the door, not knowing that Dean was watching him the entire time.

Dean stood up and looked at the clock, it was four in the morning, too early for a heart to heart with his little brother, but judging by the whiskey missing from his bag, he figured this was the chance he had been waiting for. A drunk Sam had always been a talkative Sam. Dean peered through the dirty motel room window, and saw his brother sitting on the trunk of the Impala leaning against the back window. Dean walked over to the car and got up beside his brother on the car.

"You better not scratch the paint." Dean said. Sam kind of smirked, but kept his eyes towards the sky.

"M not… I'm watching the stars…" Dean snorted.

"You're such a girl."

"We always used to watch the stars remember? When Dad gave you the Impala we used to drive out to random fields in whatever state we were in at the time and watch the sky. It used to take my mind off of angry I was to moving again." Dean smiled fondly at the memory, before Stanford, before their family broke apart, before Sam had been scarred by a death he could remember.

"Yeah I remember Sammy."

"I always liked it because the sky didn't change… I could always find the same constellations no matter where we went… it made everything else seem so small for a little while."

"Mhmmmm" Dean acknowledged.

"Used to do it Stanford sometimes to when I got homesick, I never knew where you were but at least I knew you were under the same sky as me." Dean grabbed the bottle of whiskey from Sam's hand and took a swig. Sam huffed and reached over trying to get the bottle back but Dean was holding it to far away from him.

"I was drinking that…" Sam slurred.

"Yeah well… judging by the fact this was full before you came out here… I'm gonna go ahead and say you have probably had your share… you know this isn't gonna help right?" Sam scoffed.

"Of course I do… never worked for Dad, isn't gonna work for me." Dean fought off the instinct to jump do his fathers defense and continued to talk to his brother.

"So why even try it then? If you already know it isn't gonna work?" Sam swallowed and then finally turned his head to look at his brother.

"I just don't want to think about anything for just a few hours… I don't want to think about monsters and fired and revenge. I don't want to think about her and what I did." Dean tensed.

"Sammy… this isn't your fault…"

"I didn't say it was… I'm just saying that I should have known…" Dean could tell by Sam's heavy breathing that he was finally getting somewhere, so he slid off the car to stand in front of his brother, chick flick moments be damned they were obviously gonna have to hug it out.

"What should you of known kiddo? That a monster would come for you? Hell none of us knew that would happen, we thought we were hunting it; we didn't know it was hunting us. You deserved a shot at normal, nobody can blame you for that."

"Did I? You didn't think so four years ago… you were pretty adamant that I should stay in this crap hole we call our lives." Sam was trying to deflect, and Dean wasn't going to let him do it. Whenever Sam was getting near something he didn't want to talk about he would try to start an argument, John had always fallen for it, Dean on the other hand knew his brother and he wasn't going to fall for it.

"I wasn't mad because you left, I was mad about the way you did it. I always knew you were going to take off, you hated the life, and honestly… you deserved your happy ending after all the shit we put you through."

"Happy ending…." Sam laughed. "We don't get a happy ending Dean… Winchester's don't get a happy ending, hell we didn't even get a happy middle, or a happy start. Our lives have been nothing but anger and fear and revenge, any good thing we have ever had has been ripped away from us." Dean swallowed trying to find a way to approach this tactfully.

"Sammy… I can't bring her back, and I can't make hurt any less… but you made her happy, I could see it, and she made you happy too. I don't want you to lose those memories somewhere along the way. All that's gonna do is make you cold, and its gonna get you killed." Sam watched his brother for a second, before his walls fell and he choked out a sob. He put a hand to his chest and grabbed onto the material of his shirt, trying to pull at the clenching pain he felt in his chest.

"I don't want to remember Dean, I just want to forget… it hurts…" Dean reached forward and pulled his brother into his chest, and was shocked when Sam didn't fight the hold; it had been years since they had hugged like this.

"Sammy, you gotta breathe okay?"

"I can't…"

"Yes you can, if you can talk you can breathe… c'mon man." Dean waited a few minutes for Sam's breathing to even out before speaking again. Sam was still crying and soaking Dean's shirt with tears but Dean didn't say anything about it.

"Sam… I'm gonna be totally honest with you for a second okay? And then we can go back to pretending we don't do this shit." Sam nodded against Dean's chest. "I've never lost a girlfriend or a wife, but I did lose my mother, and I remember what Dad was like after she died. It never stops hurting… every time I think about Mom I feel the wound reopening inside of me even after all these years… but it only hurts because of how much I love her, and I wouldn't trade that pain for numbness if I had to forget how much I loved her, and I know Dad wouldn't either. Dad struggles every day with the knowledge that he couldn't save her, but he still loves her as much now as he did then. Do not lock Jess away in some corner of mind Sammy; don't forget who she was, or her way her laugh sounded, or the smell of shampoo. Grieve and accept what happened, but do not ever let her go."

Dean pushed Sam back up on the car and met his little brothers watery eyes, Sam couldn't stop crying now that he had let the pain in.

"I loved her Dean…" Sam whispered.

"I know Sammy."

"I still love her…"

"You probably always will." Sam nodded and brushed the tears away from his face trying to regain some control.

"I think I'm drunk De…" Dean laughed a little and sat back down on the car.

"You are very drunk little brother, do you want to go back inside now?" Sam shook his head.

"Lets just watch the stars for awhile." Dean smiled and the two brothers leaned back against the glass window, and for just a second Dean could pretend this was five years earlier.

"Hey Sammy?" Dean said, keeping his eyes on a particular bright star.

"Yeah?"

"I know doesn't make it better… but I just remembered something Dad said to me right after Mom died."

"What's that?"

"He told me that Mom would have never given up the time she had with us for anything and that at least she got the chance to be happy." Dean turned toward Sam. "Their lives were short, but I don't think Jess would have given up those three years she spent with you either. We might not get our happy ending Sam, but maybe in some ways they got theirs." Sam laughed through his tears and smiled up and the sky.

"I hope your right Dean… I hope she was at least happy… hey Dean? What did mom's shampoo smell like?" Dean looked at Sam curiously.

"I don't remember Sam… you should ask Dad that sometime…"

Sam closed his eyes and nodded off against the back of the Impala, and for a split second he thought he could here Jessica's laugh, and smell her shampoo.

Her death was sad and terrible, but Sam had to hope that she loves him, at least as half as he loved her.


End file.
